Political Theory and Feminist Social Criticism (Contemporary Political Theory)

Political Theory and Feminist Social Criticism (Contemporary Political Theory)

Brooke A. Ackerly

Language: English

Pages: 248

ISBN: 0521659841

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub

Drawing on theoretical insights from Third World women's activism, Political Theory and Feminist Social Criticism develops democratic theory as a critical theory relevant to dealing with real world inequalities. Brooke Ackerly examines the methods by which real world feminist activists have criticized society, and argues that their activities show how feminist theory can move beyond its theoretical impasse toward articulating social criticism with critical teeth. Her book will be of interest to political and social theorists, and to students and scholars of women's studies, feminism, and human rights.

than the alternatives I have acknowledged because Third World feminist social criticism explicitly engages the problem of inequality that deliberative theory, critical theory, and feminist theory have been able to sidestep through rhetorical devices or by framing their arguments such that the problems associated with inequality are outside the scope of their projects. This is not to say that Third World feminist social criticism is a prescription for political success. It can and has failed to

desires for world peace and development.11 In the sixties in the USA, ``Third World'' became a pejorative term for referring to countries whose populations live with poverty, lack of education, high unemployment, and in the seventies with in¯ation and high national debt. Its usage also expanded to include communities within developed states who lived under similar conditions of poverty, lack of education, and high unemployment.12 10 11 12 Struggles of identity, self-determination, and cultural

World feminist theory of social criticism 69 inist social criticism further challenges tyranny of the method by inviting all forms of expression including stories, testimonials, analogies, emotionally-charged rhetoric, ¯attery, and argument. And, where the existing method is exclusive, until the conventions of deliberative method themselves are subject to deliberative social criticism, Third World feminist social criticism undermines tyranny of the method by relying on feminist social critics

living.'' 2. Satisfaction. ``Being able to have good health; to be adequately nourished; to have adequate shelter; having opportunities for sexual satisfaction, and for choices in matters of reproduction; being able to move from place to place.'' 3. Comfort. ``Being able to avoid unnecessary and non-bene®cial pain, so far as possible, and to have pleasurable experiences.'' 4. Use-of-mind-and-senses. ``Being able to use the senses; being able to imagine, to think, and to reason ± and to do these

describes as natural those characteristics of women and homosexuals that were culturally reinforced in his time. She blames the misapplication of his method on ``the tremendous power of sexual convention and sexual prejudice in shaping a view of the world'' (1986a: 371). By my reading, however, that is not a mistaken use of the methodology. The assignment was ``to ®nd out what we deeply believe to be most important and indispensable.'' If certain conventions have ``tremendous power,'' isn't it